Comfort Girl
by reminiscent-afterthought
Summary: [WWII AU] It was a time where people in love were forced apart, where young girls were forced into a life they didn't want and young boys were forced to fight lonely unforgiving wars and take whatever comfort they could.


_**A/N:**__ This story is written for the random!AU competition on the DFC (link's in my profile), with the AU: uncensored/unkiddified. Which I struggled quite a bit with to find something that would work in a T-rated setting, but then listened to some news thing about the second world war and inspiration struck. Context wise, this is set during the Japanese invasion of China and the Soviet Union in 1938 with Hikari, Takeru and Daisuke (for now; I haven't thought about the other characters yet). _

_This will be as historically correct as I can make it, however this is a work of fiction and not based off any real characters. Any likeliness to specific people will be a complete coincidence. As for the title…if you don't know what it's referring to, I'd recommend holding off on looking it up; it'll spoil the surprise ahead. As for the mint…why mint? I have no idea; it just popped up and it was just as good as anything else._

_Lastly, pairings. I usually don't write stories focused on them, but this one calls for it. However I do not favour Hikari/Takeru or Hikari/Daisuke over each other. I believe that a good author can make anything work and that's about the extent to which I involve myself in shipping wars. I understand that others have different preferences, so if you do hate seeing either of the aforementioned couples broken (considering they're both present at different points), this might not be the fic for you._

_Okay, one more thing. :D Since ffn's new posting system is a pain, I've switched to using dots in place of dividers. Two dots is the separation between author's note and the actual chapter; one dot separates scenes within the chapter itself._

_And that's about it from me. Hopefully the other A/Ns won't be as monstrous as this one. :D Enjoy._

**.**

**.**

There was a constant air of paranoia in the false peace. The only gunshots they heard were on the newsreels brought in from China. The only bombs they saw exploding were on the newspapers that flooded the streets and were taped on every door and gate. The only deaths they saw were the ones written in letters to families and friends, and then in obituaries days later.

But their country was at war, and they knew it would soon knock on their doors.

**.**

**Comfort Girl  
**_**Chapter 1**_

**.**

Hikari could hear shouting in the streets, but it was muted by the curtains and the closed window and the splay of body and cloth that accompanied her in bed. She closed her eyes a moment and breathed in the familiar scent of moist soil and mint, waiting for the shouts to fade.

When they did, she frowned and gently nudged the arm across her stomach away. Takeru mumbled incoherently and slept on, and Hikari spared him a smile before tweaking the curtains back.

Their street was flooded. Since the war with China began, quietness had become a relic of the past, and yet it seemed as though every inhabitant, man or bird, had spilled out of their homes that morning. Birds, black streaks against the blue-grey sky, squawked at the crowd below, the crowd remaining deaf to those cries.

Their attention was elsewhere, and within minutes Hikari had slipped into her nightgown and slippers and onto the street to be swept with the tremulous crowd. The noise was deafening once she left her home; the soothing deafness of those four walls as the voices were heard in their natural sharp tones. She could still make out few words, jumbled together as they were, but she could make out the panic, the fear that gripped them all. No question got through to them; each family was locked in their own little word, gripping each other tightly enough to bruise and barely noticing the shadows that slipped past. Hikari struggled on, swept by the pressing feeling despite knowing nothing at all –

Then she saw the poster they were bundled around, and she understood.

**.**

'They've started drafting,' Takeru repeated, staring at his cup of tea, the small clay-ware looking more fragile than usual in his hands. His tone was far from steady: trembling with shock, as though a nightmare they'd dismissed had become true…and they had. But they hadn't dismissed it; with the increasing reports coming in from the Japanese forces in China, they knew it was only a matter of time before civilians were drafted into the army. They knew the war was far from over; there had been fighting for months already, and all that had come off it were newsreels of falling soldiers, shots of villages razed to the ground, and corpses piling up and being left behind on the battlefield.

Hikari's own cup shook along with her trembling hands and she abandoned it, envisioning the broken clay-ware that would follow if she didn't. It was an inexpensive set; one her brother had brought with his first pay for her, but it was valuable, familiar, and comforting. She couldn't bear the thought of it shattering, loathe as she did to detach herself from that comfort.

Takeru lifted a hand from his cup and offered it to Hikari; she took it carefully, feeling his rough callouses against her own tender skin. 'You might be close,' she offered, though hopelessly. The war wasn't in Japan. He would be far away from her.

'The war isn't in Japan.' He mirrored her thoughts, gripping his cup tight. Hikari had made green tea, the mint from their trade floating in the centre and giving its unique smell, the smell that had woven itself into their home and all that lived within it: their walls and floor, their furniture, their clothes… 'God, I hope I live to see this again.'

Hikari's lip trembled, but her eyes remained dry. A time for crying would yet come: during farewells, during the news of agony and pain, during the last, stranger, letter confirming death… That was all they knew of wars. They grew and harvested mint leaves together: nothing more. 'You haven't been drafted yet,' she reminded. It was just a notice after all; the world could change in a day. _They_ could change in a day.

But Takeru's blue eyes were filled with hopelessness at the thought. 'It's as good as done,' he said, and kissed her hand lightly.

**.**

Takeru was right; the official order came in a week and their neighbours hid behind their curtains as the government employers arrived on the street. But they came to their door first, for him, and the neighbours came with small condolences in the aftermath.

The relief they felt for not being the first was short lived though; in the time between Takeru's receive of the order and his departure date, two more on their street had received similar papers, all set for different dates and locations. The tearing apart of their small community was easily felt; within a few weeks, there would be three houses without men: a young girl set to marry in the fall without a betrothed. Two young children without a father. An elderly woman without her son. And there were many more who waited with baited breath, waited for the knock on their door that would steal a loved one from them.

And the list of names in the obituaries grew longer by the day. 'Of course,' Takeru said, when Hikari pointed it out. 'If Japan was winning, they wouldn't have need for us.'

'_I_ need you,' Hikari said inaudibly. Takeru didn't hear her, and he wasn't supposed to. Nothing she said would change the outcome; he'd been drafted, and he would have to go. Her complaining would only burden him more. 'Promise you'll write to me,' she said instead. 'Write whenever you can, so I can know you're safe.'

He said he would and held her. She snaked her arms around him and pulled him close.

**.**

The time came too soon, and they found their last night together suddenly upon them. 'Let's marry now,' Takeru whispered in her ear as they lay together under warm covers and the spring night air.

'We can't,' Hikari said, her eyes brimming with tears. 'If you'd asked another time I would have said yes in a heartbeat, but I can't be your wife on your wedding night when you're to go tomorrow. That is too great a burden for either of us to bear.'

There was sense in those words, but Takeru growled in frustration and tossed the covers off the both of them so the cool air snuck between. 'God knows when I'll see you next,' he said, holding her close so her nightdress rubbed against his bare chest. He closed his eyes, inhaling the mint that perpetually clung and the feel of soft cotton against his skin – feelings that would soon be rubbed away with coarse smoke and scabbing wounds and blood. 'I hope we're just seeing a nightmare of war.'

He trembled in the cold, and Hikari lifted herself up to pull the blankets over them both once more. 'Sleep,' she whispered tenderly, her voice shaking like the body she held.

'I can't sleep,' was the hoarse reply. 'I won't see you again for too long.'

Neither could she; it was their last night together for months, if not more. The wedding in the fall seemed like a far off future now; too much could happen first. The deployment could last longer than the six months they had left. The war could spread: further away, or into the territory controlled by the Empire of Japan. Or he could be hurt, or…

'Not long,' Hikari said, resolute. 'We must believe in ourselves, each other and our country. You must believe you'll return home, to me, soon.'

'I'll return to you soon,' he repeated, until it became a promise murmured into her soft brown hair. 'I'll return soon; wait for me. We'll marry under the golden leaves like we always planned.'

'I'll wait,' Hikaru whispered into the warm crook of his neck, her cool lips brushing the sensitive skin. 'I'll wait forever for you.'

They lay like that, tangled but awake, until the sun rose.

**.**

With the sun came a sombre silence Hikari could scarcely bear, but she had no choice because to break down meant to scar her farewell with ugly steaks. She stood on the platform alone, framed in grey. He stood in the carriage doorway, single luggage case in hand. Around his neck he wore a scarf – her scarf, to "keep away the dust" she'd said. But that was another sentimental item: the one she'd almost lost when they'd first met.

Takeru touched the soft silk. 'I'll return this,' he said tenderly. 'I'll bring this back to you.'

Hikari nodded, eyes burning and dry as her hands clutched each other under her shawl. 'Take care,' she said.

He nodded, and there was nothing left to say. What could one say, when seeing a loved one off to war? Don't get hurt? Come back soon? None of that was really assured, and yet they'd said it all. Their final request was a simple one in comparison: the truest of them all perhaps. "Take care"; what simple two words they were, and how general their meaning. And yet, even words like that could be lost in the gunshots and bombs of war.

And this was for people who were yet to see the true war.


End file.
